Next Naval Update?

[Usable Username]

I have Posted a Suggestion thread up titled 'Navy - Efficient Balance Changes for a More Dynamic System' based on the learnings from this discussion thread.

Please head over and upvote the thread so we can get a more dynamic hoi4 Navy experience.

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An effort to implement as small a change for a large, positive impact on Hoi4 Navy as it stands.

Proposed Changes:

1. Introduce a new column in naval engagements for cruisers in-between destroyers and capitals, similar to what was done to carriers a while back.

2. Allow destroyers to screen for cruisers at a rate of 1-1 or 2-1. and apply a lesser screening bonus to accuracy in the cruiser column of ~10-20% that gives destroyers an opportunity to provide a supporting buff without making them a necessity for every fleet comp. Use cruiser column + destroyer column to provide screening to capitals.

3. Set both gun types to fire on all ranges. Weigh the gun types to each include cruisers as a high priority (column 1 and 2 high priority for lights, 2+ high priority for heavies), (optional extra) weight the gun types to bleed a small portion of shots towards their less then ideal targets, i.e. lights target capitals sometimes, Heavy guns have a small chance to target DD sometimes. Use Cruiser column + Capital Column to screen for Carriers + Transport column.

4. Upgrade light armour ratings to sit above their respectively tiered guns to reduce the effectiveness of light batteries when compared to heavy batteries at killing cruisers. Use devspective to set this number in such a way so that within reason, heavy cruisers become more efficient at killing heavily equipped cruisers, while at the very light and fast end of cruiser design, light guns can remain the most efficient. Tie a one off heavy damage accuracy buff to medium guns to balance. (Similar check to capital or not)

5. Consider proportional adjustments to destroyers and secondary batteries in line with the % armour increase.

6. Enjoy fielding a wider variety of fleet compositions that will each have advantages and disadvantages in different matchups and conditions.

Bonus: Hopefully all of these changes have been done before and dont employ anything particularly complex or new in the back end. Maby Gui exempted?? Sad to be proven wrong, but not surprised if i am.

The discussion continues....

Regards

Usable Username

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Edit: added medium gun accuracy buff for balance as required.

Edit: updated light gun targeting.

Please note i have updated my first from its orgional to summarise the first 3 pages of posts.

Origional First post below.
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Problem - navy armour is useless for heavy cruisers and not particularly useful elsewhere as the speed increase for not using it is often better then using it. Leading metta of l1 DD and light gun CA essentially capitalises on this and effectively makes any updated heavy gun redundant. bb and shbb especially.

Solution:

Can we please consider giving light cruiser batteries/light batteries in general the ability to engage the second naval row at a scaling rate to screening efficiency maxing out say 20%? Perhaps the inverse rate to heavy guns? This could also provide a buff to BB as they would have a ?realistic? effect of taking some small gun attention for the fleet.

Consider adding a 5-15% damage reduction as soon as the armour beats the piercing, then add scaling as is on top. I.e.

And importantly add a small scaled damage reduction for guns that do pierce the enemies armour. I.e. l2 guns on L1 armour still gives a 10-20% reduction reduced to 0 with l3 guns. with cmdr and doctrine buffs moving this around.

Or/and .consider adding a heavy cruiser armour set.

Essentially an armour buff that is more scaled and not as powerful as the old 90% upfront reduction. Gives value to armour over a wider variety of situations.

Simple changes should reset the arms race and make a larger variety of fleet compesitions available.

Kind Regards

UsableUsername

P.s. can we please consider giving early BB like the Kongo class a historically appropriate set of secondary batteries? 16 152mm guns are currently reflected as 3.0 light attack.... heavy secondary mod?

 

[Cavalry]

Essentially an armour buff that is more scaled and not as powerful as the old 90% upfront reduction. Gives value to armour over a wider variety of situations.

Light ship shoot into BB is nice, probably BB shoot into DD too.

But 90% reduction is not happend suddenly, not like land armor. I think it is 90% only if you have zero piercing, only 45% reduction if you have half piercing. So with L3 gun you already have the extra attack vs L2 gun.

 

[Usable Username]

Could also restrict the Light attack to 2 lines period. as apposed to two hostile lines. Effectively making capital secondaries only target screens as per usual but giving light cruisers a chance to engage heavy cruisers that would otherwise be hidden behind a swarm of DD1 while shooting back with the exact same guns.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

I feel like there are four really obvious problems:

1.) CAs count as capital ships, despite operating historically in the screen line (the largely sailed alongside or just behind destroyers, rather than several kilometers behind the cruiser and destroyer screens, and engaged cruisers and destroyers rather than capital ships). Real heavy cruisers were considered interchangeable with modern light cruisers like the Town or Brooklyn class, with many actually being less-capable (particularly the first-generation ships like the Furutaka, Duquesne, Pensacola, and Hawkins) than later light cruisers.

2.) Secondary light guns benefit from capital ship screening, giving capital ships more light attack than light cruisers (despite logically being out of range of any of the targets they could engage if they were "properly screened". The only weapon that should benefit from screening efficiency is heavy guns.

3.) Light guns are too effective compared to heavy guns or torpedoes. The weapon that screens should be killing capital ships with are torpedoes, as historically nothing in WWII larger than destroyers was ever sunk by pure 6-inch or lighter gunfire (even 8-inch guns tended to damage, rather than destroy). By comparison, a single torpedo hit could potentially knock the bow off of a warship or cut it in half, and was guaranteed to cause major flooding (which didn't often happen with small guns); battleship guns on the flip side didn't cause as much flooding as torpedoes, but were known to breach the magazines of enemy ships and detonate them then-and-there (and also caused devastating amounts of damage to anything they hit).

4.) Armor isn't effective enough. A cruiser with a 3-inch armor belt should always be better against other light cruisers than one with no armor and the same engine. Ships without armor were hugely-vulnerable to devastating damage from gunfire, with the main exception being destroyers due to their small size (AP shells would simply pass through them).

Making CLs more effective with light guns wouldn't really address any of these current problems, and would make the third one worse and just shift the meta away from heavy cruisers and back towards light cruisers.

 

[bitmode]

2.) Secondary light guns benefit from capital ship screening, giving capital ships more light attack than light cruisers (despite logically being out of range of any of the targets they could engage if they were "properly screened". The only weapon that should benefit from screening efficiency is heavy guns.

I would go even further and penalize light guns from screening. Either the enemy can hit you and you can shoot back (with same-ranged weapons) or neither can.

 

[Usable Username]

I feel like there are four really obvious problems:

1.) CAs count as capital ships, despite operating historically in the screen line (the largely sailed alongside or just behind destroyers, rather than several kilometers behind the cruiser and destroyer screens, and engaged cruisers and destroyers rather than capital ships). Real heavy cruisers were considered interchangeable with modern light cruisers like the Town or Brooklyn class, with many actually being less-capable (particularly the first-generation ships like the Furutaka, Duquesne, Pensacola, and Hawkins) than later light cruisers.

2.) Secondary light guns benefit from capital ship screening, giving capital ships more light attack than light cruisers (despite logically being out of range of any of the targets they could engage if they were "properly screened". The only weapon that should benefit from screening efficiency is heavy guns.

3.) Light guns are too effective compared to heavy guns or torpedoes. The weapon that screens should be killing capital ships with are torpedoes, as historically nothing in WWII larger than destroyers was ever sunk by pure 6-inch or lighter gunfire (even 8-inch guns tended to damage, rather than destroy). By comparison, a single torpedo hit could potentially knock the bow off of a warship or cut it in half, and was guaranteed to cause major flooding (which didn't often happen with small guns); battleship guns on the flip side didn't cause as much flooding as torpedoes, but were known to breach the magazines of enemy ships and detonate them then-and-there (and also caused devastating amounts of damage to anything they hit).

4.) Armor isn't effective enough. A cruiser with a 3-inch armor belt should always be better against other light cruisers than one with no armor and the same engine. Ships without armor were hugely-vulnerable to devastating damage from gunfire, with the main exception being destroyers due to their small size (AP shells would simply pass through them).

Making CLs more effective with light guns wouldn't really address any of these current problems, and would make the third one worse and just shift the meta away from heavy cruisers and back towards light cruisers.

I feel like so far we are all on the same page about the general problem but with variations on the solutions.

Essentially that the way CA work with light guns is wierd and that the fact that armour is pointless for them is also wierd.

Moving CA to the screen line could fix it but would make them vulnerable to torpedoes.

Giving light guns a 2 column range could fix it. But would mean that you would still need to maintain screening efficiency which is also a Lil wierd as, similar to you, I feel like CA should be able to form the bulk of a strike fleet without to much of a penalty as per history. Perhaps reducing the amount of screens required for a CA could do it?

Unless adding a 4th column for cruisers is an option. Mechanically I think this would be the easiest way to go.

 

[Usable Username]

Scaling the screening penalty for different ship types could also be worth it.

It'd just be nice to be able to bring a squad of 8 CA without carting along 30+dd.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

Scaling the screening penalty for different ship types could also be worth it.

It'd just be nice to be able to bring a squad of 8 CA without carting along 30+dd.

Usually cruisers would still travel with large numbers of destroyers as escorts, and it was pretty typical when you lacked those destroyer screens for cruisers to get torpedoed. They're more agile than capital ships (since their engines are similar in size, but their displacement typically is around a quarter that of capital ships), so they should have an increased chance to dodge torpedoes, but effective gun range for most cruisers is still around 10 km, which isn't far outside torpedo range (and inside of it for Japanese torpedoes).

If cruisers had something like a 40% evasion chance on torpedoes, and DDs had a 90% chance, then buffing the damage would make them remain very dangerous to capital ships without them killing off smaller ships too often. Its important that they're still vulnerable, however, since torpedoes were the primary cause of cruiser losses (including heavy cruisers) in WWII. For some particularly strange incidents, Japan actually scored more initial torpedo hits using heavy cruisers than they did with destroyers, due to some of the early doctrinal problems (admirals really had to learn to let destroyers operate independently, and for the US and Japan it took about a year to get used to that); you can't torpedo someone with a CA unless you're also in torpedo range yourself.

 

[Corpse Fool]

I think that if we put CA in the screen line, the vast majority of the entire point of differentiating between a CL and a CA is lost in the current mechanics.

In addition to changing the gun ranges to being X amount of layers away from whatever layer the ship is currently in, It might be interesting to introduce a new cruiser layer for the CL and CA to sit in, while the CL still counts as a screen. I imagine having the CA still count as a capital is too much. So the new layers would be DD/CL, CL/CA, BC/BB, CV/convoy, and SS.

Might also try to shove destroyer leaders in there too.

 

[Usable Username]

Usually cruisers would still travel with large numbers of destroyers as escorts, and it was pretty typical when you lacked those destroyer screens for cruisers to get torpedoed. They're more agile than capital ships (since their engines are similar in size, but their displacement typically is around a quarter that of capital ships), so they should have an increased chance to dodge torpedoes, but effective gun range for most cruisers is still around 10 km, which isn't far outside torpedo range (and inside of it for Japanese torpedoes).

If cruisers had something like a 40% evasion chance on torpedoes, and DDs had a 90% chance, then buffing the damage would make them remain very dangerous to capital ships without them killing off smaller ships too often. Its important that they're still vulnerable, however, since torpedoes were the primary cause of cruiser losses (including heavy cruisers) in WWII. For some particularly strange incidents, Japan actually scored more initial torpedo hits using heavy cruisers than they did with destroyers, due to some of the early doctrinal problems (admirals really had to learn to let destroyers operate independently, and for the US and Japan it took about a year to get used to that); you can't torpedo someone with a CA unless you're also in torpedo range yourself.

The more I think about it the more I feel a 4th cruiser column would solve all the problems.

Column 1 for dd n subs 2 for ca/cl 3 for bb 4 for carriers n transports.

Let everything screen for everything to the right. Reduce the screening requirements and the screening penalty/buff for the cruiser column. (Say 2 dd for 1 ca and maby 1 dd for a cl?) (And maby Max the screening efficiency buff to say 20%)So that destroyers become more of an option over a requirement for screening cruisers. While bb still stay how they are with everything scaled to capitals as is.

That way should I choose. If we're running faster, more lightly gunned cruisers I could opt to go without a destroyer screen and rely on the better hit profile. If I were running 3+ gunned cruisers I would be more inclined to invest in a destroyer screen to stop torpedoes.

Let light guns target both or even first 3 rows.

Now CA can be the core of a fleet and a huge amount of dynamic fleet compositions just opened up.

All problems solved and the rest can stay as is.

Bar maby a light update of doctrine and leader buffs.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

I think that if we put CA in the screen line, the vast majority of the entire point of differentiating between a CL and a CA is lost in the current mechanics.

In addition to changing the gun ranges to being X amount of layers away from whatever layer the ship is currently in, It might be interesting to introduce a new cruiser layer for the CL and CA to sit in, while the CL still counts as a screen. I imagine having the CA still count as a capital is too much. So the new layers would be DD/CL, CL/CA, BC/BB, CV/convoy, and SS.

Might also try to shove destroyer leaders in there too.

While I do understand that CLs and CAs lose most of their distinction if CAs become a screen, they'd still have a more-significant distinction than battleships and battlecruisers. Since screen CAs would be less effective against destroyers (their main guns are less accurate), their primary role would be to kill other cruisers. By comparison, a BC is just a smaller BB that's just as unassailable for a regular cruiser as an SHBB.

One detail that I took for granted but didn't state openly: a critically-important part of this is removing CL guns from heavy cruisers (that concept is more than 30 years obsolete, due to massive fire control problems), and buffing CA guns (and targeting) into a rational, working state instead.

My main problem is that to be historical, a CA has to be vulnerable to torpedoes, has to focus its fire on cruisers first, and has to be vulnerable to light gunfire. Setting them into a different role to distinguish them can't change those key details, or they're being artificially buffed for "balance purposes".

 

[Cavalry]

I think that if we put CA in the screen line, the vast majority of the entire point of differentiating between a CL and a CA is lost in the current mechanics.

Some often use the latest armor, latest gun for CL. But I often build for speed, I don't use the latest guns (they give big speed penalty but only a few attack more). I also use only level 1 or 2 CL armor.

So there is room to different CL and CA by gun and armor, and that is well suit to real life.

If you don't build fast CL before (about the same speed as 1936 DD, to withdraw most ships the same time) , try that and tell us back. If you don't build "heavy" CL yet, build them and report back!

 

[Corpse Fool]

While I do understand that CLs and CAs lose most of their distinction if CAs become a screen, they'd still have a more-significant distinction than battleships and battlecruisers. Since screen CAs would be less effective against destroyers (their main guns are less accurate), their primary role would be to kill other cruisers. By comparison, a BC is just a smaller BB that's just as unassailable for a regular cruiser as an SHBB.

One detail that I took for granted but didn't state openly: a critically-important part of this is removing CL guns from heavy cruisers (that concept is more than 30 years obsolete, due to massive fire control problems), and buffing CA guns (and targeting) into a rational, working state instead.

My main problem is that to be historical, a CA has to be vulnerable to torpedoes, has to focus its fire on cruisers first, and has to be vulnerable to light gunfire. Setting them into a different role to distinguish them can't change those key details, or they're being artificially buffed for "balance purposes".

In the interests of having simple, visible ideas so that a player can look at the screen and hopefully understand what to do.
We would need to separate the CL and CA hull, so that you can't put CL guns on the CA. This would also hopefully fix the design company bonuses being broken on CA.
We would need to separate CA guns from BB/BC guns to avoid forcing the BB/BC to shoot cruisers first instead of other BC/BB, most likely by making the CA guns use "Medium attack" instead of heavy, with its own accuracy somewhere between heavy and light.
Adding a cruiser layer between screen and capital would help us make the CA better at prioritizing other cruisers, because we could make the medium guns have boosted weight against things in the cruiser layer, much like heavy attack prioritizes the deeper layers.

Some often use the latest armor, latest gun for CL. But I often build for speed, I don't use the latest guns (they give big speed penalty but only a few attack more). I also use only level 1 or 2 CL armor.

So there is room to different CL and CA by gun and armor, and that is well suit to real life.

In the current vanilla game, I can't see much reason to use a CL as a fleet ship. It is a worse screen than a DD, and a worse gunship than a CA.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

In the interests of having simple, visible ideas so that a player can look at the screen and hopefully understand what to do.
We would need to separate the CL and CA hull, so that you can't put CL guns on the CA. This would also hopefully fix the design company bonuses being broken on CA.
We would need to separate CA guns from BB/BC guns to avoid forcing the BB/BC to shoot cruisers first instead of other BC/BB, most likely by making the CA guns use "Medium attack" instead of heavy, with its own accuracy somewhere between heavy and light.
Adding a cruiser layer between screen and capital would help us make the CA better at prioritizing other cruisers, because we could make the medium guns have boosted weight against things in the cruiser layer, much like heavy attack prioritizes the deeper layers.

In the current vanilla game, I can't see much reason to use a CL as a fleet ship. It is a worse screen than a DD, and a worse gunship than a CA.

The easiest solution to the split between CL and CA designs is twofold:
1.) BIG TOOLTIPS. This game's UI really needs to be overhauled in general, and adding a really obvious "CL guns are best for killing destroyers" versus "CA guns are best for killing cruisers", then you aren't sitting there wondering what the difference is. There's all this space on the side of the screen to use (admittedly my monitor is pretty big, but the windows for ship design aren't big at all), so having a tiny tooltip of stat changes isn't really what I'm looking for.

2.) Lock cruisers to one type of main gun: either 6-inch CL guns, or 8-inch CA guns (with 5-inch DP guns available as well, but mixing those is historically-accurate for both CLs and CAs). Once you've set your main gun, any existing CL/CA guns of a different type (either type or tech level) would switch automatically. This would both remove the issue of needing a unique hull (CA hulls are interchangeable historically, so that adds a lot of extra design time for a new hull with the exact same specs), and also greatly simplify the issue of naval design (click one button and replace all your guns).

The second issue of designers really speaks to its own problem: designers should be modular, not one-off research bonuses. Every major power should get a designer by default that they can apply to ships (and can be applied to starting tech), and their added designer bonus (with the associated research bonus) can be selected optionally as an alternative. In theory, you could even let people stack multiple designers if they wanted to have more than two. This would also fix the issue of ships like the Lexington-class CV having too few aircraft, or the Scharnhorst being too-heavily armed and too-slow.

 

[Usable Username]

Some often use the latest armor, latest gun for CL. But I often build for speed, I don't use the latest guns (they give big speed penalty but only a few attack more). I also use only level 1 or 2 CL armor.

So there is room to different CL and CA by gun and armor, and that is well suit to real life.

If you don't build fast CL before (about the same speed as 1936 DD, to withdraw most ships the same time) , try that and tell us back. If you don't build "heavy" CL yet, build them and report back!

The easiest solution to the split between CL and CA designs is twofold:
1.) BIG TOOLTIPS. This game's UI really needs to be overhauled in general, and adding a really obvious "CL guns are best for killing destroyers" versus "CA guns are best for killing cruisers", then you aren't sitting there wondering what the difference is. There's all this space on the side of the screen to use (admittedly my monitor is pretty big, but the windows for ship design aren't big at all), so having a tiny tooltip of stat changes isn't really what I'm looking for.

2.) Lock cruisers to one type of main gun: either 6-inch CL guns, or 8-inch CA guns (with 5-inch DP guns available as well, but mixing those is historically-accurate for both CLs and CAs). Once you've set your main gun, any existing CL/CA guns of a different type (either type or tech level) would switch automatically. This would both remove the issue of needing a unique hull (CA hulls are interchangeable historically, so that adds a lot of extra design time for a new hull with the exact same specs), and also greatly simplify the issue of naval design (click one button and replace all your guns).

Generally agree to both points. But I'd just point out that if we get a cruiser specific column that can get hit by light guns. The rest should sort itself out and the combat potential would be different enough that you wouldn't need to make any other specific changes.

Faster and lighter cruisers would.be bested by more heavily equipped cruisers, but the heavier a cruiser gets (I.e. say mixed light battery heavy) the more damage it will take from heavy guns via its hit profile. Then in turn heavily equipped CA would be more vulnerable. To BB and so on.

While CA don't have their own armour set, they do get significant hp bonuses with their guns to compensate.

Restricting primary guns toa single size would be nice aswell to stop these Frankenstein builds. Or perhaps police it by providing a penalty to accuracy if they are mixed. Might be easier on the coding side.

 

[Question]

Yea, the naval combat system as it stands makes actual CA (with heavy guns) pretty pointless. I cant think of a good way to fix this.

-If you move them to the screen line so their armor serves a purpose, they cant screen for carriers (which is supposed to be a huge part of their role, as you wont need to research BBs when running carrier fleets)

-If you keep them as a capital ship, their armor is pointless because anything that can hit the second line can pierce their armor anyway

-Their heavy guns shoot at BBs, which you do not want, so its better to use BCs for the same role in most cases

-They are supposed to be fast carrier escorts, but they are actually significantly slower than BCs because medium cruiser batteries slow the ship down a LOT and due to the way naval AA works, cannot help the carrier shoot down attacking planes in naval strikes (and only 20% of their AA is used in combat)

The end result is that you get heavy gun CAs that waste time shooting at either BBs or screens, neither of which are good target choices, and only when they shoot at BCs and CAs specifically do they serve a purpose.

The only two areas where i can think of where CA actually shine are :

-Cheap carrier screens

-If, for some reason, you want to put torpedos or depth charges on cruiser hulls, you can mix them with medium cruiser batteries to get the capital ship accuracy bonus but this is obviously inferior to just spamming cheap destroyers, unless this is late game and you REALLY need the extra range (because destroyers have significantly less range than destroyers)

Everything else like making light guns hit the second line, adding a fourth line to the naval system, etc, cant be modded unfortunately, and the odds of paradox fixing the naval system again are pretty much nil.

 

[Usable Username]

-If you move them to the screen line so their armor serves a purpose, they cant screen for carriers (which is supposed to be a huge part of their role, as you wont need to research BBs when running carrier fleets)

-If you keep them as a capital ship, their armor is pointless because anything that can hit the second line can pierce their armor anyway

-Their heavy guns shoot at BBs, which you do not want, so its better to use BCs for the same role in most cases

-They are supposed to be fast carrier escorts, but they are actually significantly slower than BCs because medium cruiser batteries slow the ship down a LOT and due to the way naval AA works, cannot help the carrier shoot down attacking planes in naval strikes (and only 20% of their AA is used in combat)

The end result is that you get heavy gun CAs that waste time shooting at either BBs or screens, neither of which are good target choices, and only when they shoot at BCs and CAs specifically do they serve a purpose.

It's worth pointing out that they would effectively screen for carriers still for the most part if they form part of a cruiser screen line. Just part of an earlier calculation. Only change would be that they may be able to target the carrier with direct fire from time to time. Which I'm not sure how I feel about. Maby an opportunity to fix carrier armour. Otherwise just flick that screen calculation to include some input from the cruiser line.

Everything else like making light guns hit the second line, adding a fourth line to the naval system, etc, cant be modded unfortunately, and the odds of paradox fixing the naval system again are pretty much nil.

How do we get a dev to have a take this on?
I know something similar was done when carriers got their own column so I'm optimistic that this proposal of one for cruisers could be a relatively simple inclusion.

 

[Question]

It's worth pointing out that they would effectively screen for carriers still for the most part if they form part of a cruiser screen line. Just part of an earlier calculation. Only change would be that they may be able to target the carrier with direct fire from time to time. Which I'm not sure how I feel about. Maby an opportunity to fix carrier armour. Otherwise just flick that screen calculation to include some input from the cruiser line.


How do we get a dev to have a take this on?
I know something similar was done when carriers got their own column so I'm optimistic that this proposal of one for cruisers could be a relatively simple inclusion.

I was talking about the current system where there is no "cruiser screen line", just screens + capitals + carriers. Moving them to the screen line would prevent them from screening carriers.

How do we get a dev to have a take this on?

Well the problem is you would need a way to contact a dev, the dev has to want to read this, and they have to want to do it. Given that paradox has a long history of pushing out new DLCs for the quick bucks instead of fixing core issues with their games, i dont see this happening any time soon (they released a DLC for EU4 that broke colonial nation AI and its still not fixed or even acknowledged after more than 5 years of bug reports).

 

[Usable Username]

I was talking about the current system where there is no "cruiser screen line", just screens + capitals + carriers. Moving them to the screen line would prevent them from screening carriers.



Well the problem is you would need a way to contact a dev, the dev has to want to read this, and they have to want to do it. Given that paradox has a long history of pushing out new DLCs for the quick bucks instead of fixing core issues with their games, i dont see this happening any time soon (they released a DLC for EU4 that broke colonial nation AI and its still not fixed or even acknowledged after more than 5 years of bug reports).

Pessimism aside, any recent examples of dev attention grabbing material around?

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

Generally agree to both points. But I'd just point out that if we get a cruiser specific column that can get hit by light guns. The rest should sort itself out and the combat potential would be different enough that you wouldn't need to make any other specific changes.

Faster and lighter cruisers would.be bested by more heavily equipped cruisers, but the heavier a cruiser gets (I.e. say mixed light battery heavy) the more damage it will take from heavy guns via its hit profile. Then in turn heavily equipped CA would be more vulnerable. To BB and so on.

While CA don't have their own armour set, they do get significant hp bonuses with their guns to compensate.

Restricting primary guns toa single size would be nice aswell to stop these Frankenstein builds. Or perhaps police it by providing a penalty to accuracy if they are mixed. Might be easier on the coding side.

I mostly agree with this, but I have two big exceptions to draw out.

1.) You'd be surprised how similar in size a small light cruiser is to a large heavy cruiser. For instance, the lightest 1930s CLs for Britain, the Emerald-class, stack up at just short of 10,000 tons and are 174 meters long. The Zara-class, the biggest and best-armored heavy cruisers of the pre-war period, are 14,000 tons and 180 meters; at 4000 tons heavier, they're only 6 meters longer. The largest two US cruisers, the Cleveland CL and Baltmore CA, are 3,000 tons and 20 meters apart in size (185 vs 205). By comparison, the battlecruiser Dunkerque is 214m long, or only 10 meters longer than a Baltimore. While height is an issue, most modern cruisers have large superstructures.

2.) Heavy cruiser armor profiles don't really exist. They used to with WWI-era armored cruisers, but battleships and battlecruisers dealt such disastrous damage to them that they were discontinued as a class (except some coastal defense ships that shared their characteristics). They previously had been built with armored belts between 6 and 8 inches typically, but lacked the speed to be competitive with light cruisers. Heavy cruisers, by comparison, couldn't afford the weight to use those armor belts (their original design was to be able to outrun battlecruisers and outgun light cruisers).

For some perspective, the USN started the Brooklyn-class light cruisers after the London Naval Treaty banned their production of more New Orleans-class heavy cruisers, and the resulting design actually had better armor than the previous New Orleans class (up to 5 inches, as opposed to 4). Not one CA in the 1920s had 5 inches of belt armor, and most had 3 inches or less (the French in particular basically ignored armor).

The HP bonus that comes with CA guns is even worse when you consider that Japan literally produced the Mogami-class as light cruisers with triple 6-inch guns, then at the start of WWII swapped the guns for twin 8-inch turrets that were identically-sized; the two variant designs use the same hull and weight the same, with the exact same armor, yet in game the Mogami would be almost double the health with the larger guns.